Archive for the ‘Lefties' fairness’ Category

[Reason.com] And the Award for Most Sanctimonious Non-Apology of the Week Goes To…

Rachel Maddow.

Last night, Maddow pulled some truly Rhodes Scholarship-worthy rhetorical gymnastics in both apologizing for and doubling down on her accusation that former Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) had some kind of prior knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing. Maddow conceded that she was guilty of a “misstatement” and an “editing error” in accusing the one-term U.S. congressman of being at least partly responsible for the deaths of 168 fellow human beings. But she then made light of her colossally offensive “misstatement” by arguing that her main contention still stands: The important thing, she claimed, isn’t that she said something mindbogglingly slanderous, it’s that she was justified in doing so.

The real vomit-all-over-your-keyboard moment comes at roughly the 2-minute mark, where Maddow sarcastically frames her apology as a chance to congratulate herself on bringing the specter of militant right-wing politics to the public’s attention. “For all the conservative bloggers out there who are extremely angry at me for making that mistake” she said, “thank you. Thank you for signaling such enthusiasm for discussing guys like Steve Stockman, and for getting all the details right. If the country talked a lot more about the Steve Stockmans of the world and anti-government extremism and what the experience of having anti-government extremists in Congress was like for this country the last time we tried it, I think that would be good for us in this country, particularly before this round of elections.”

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats on Wednesday proposed allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion to pay its bills, a record increase that would permit the national debt to reach $14.3 trillion.

Trillion is the new billion.

It’s hardly the debate Democrats want or need in the wake of Sen.-elect Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts. Arguing over the debt limit provides a forum for Republicans to blame Democrats for rising deficits and spiraling debt, even though responsibility for the government’s financial straits can be shared by both political parties.

Who tripled the deficit, again?

Congress has never failed to increase the borrowing limit.

“We have gone to the restaurant. We have eaten the meal. Now the only question is whether we will pay the check,” said Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. “We simply must do so.”

A White House policy statement said the increase “is critically important to make sure that financing of federal government operations can continue without interruption and that the creditworthiness of the United States is not called into question.”

Less than a decade ago, $1.9 trillion would have been enough to finance the operations and programs of the federal government for an entire year. Now, it’s only enough to make sure Democrats can avoid another vote before Election Day.

Who are these folks issuing Obama a prize on credit to steer America along their preferred course? The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five Norwegians, whose members are appointed by the parliament of Norway. Ever heard of Thorbjorn Jagland? Active for decades in the Socialist International, a collectivist who navigated a long series of embarrassing moments in Norwegian politics to become current Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, Jagland now heads the Norwegian Nobel Committee. His fellow members who have just issued this Nobel IOU to a sitting American president are — are we ready for global policy guided by this crowd? – Kaci Kullman Five, Sissel Marie Ronbeck, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn and Agot Valle.

What, more specifically, might they be expecting of Obama? For starters, Norway, along with neighboring Sweden and Denmark, has been banging the drum for America to hand over to the United Nations enormous control over and constraints upon the U.S. economy, in the name of (warming/cooling/take-your-pick) climate change. Thus did Norway’s Nobel committee bestow its favors in 2007 on Al Gore and the UN’s Self-Interested Panel of Politically Corrupted Science — excuse me, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And this December the UN is convening a big climate conference in Copenhagen, with which the U.N. hopes to “seal” its growth-stunting UN-enriching climate “deal.”

When the anti-U.S. Nobel Peace Price committee awards you not based on your deeds but only based on your worldview, you’ve gotta stop and think. Especially if you are the PotUS.

I’m not really surprised by the Nobel committee’s decision to grant the Peace Price to Barack Obama. I assumed they would give it to him at the earliest opportunity. I forgot the award had not been given for this year. It would have been slightly better for their credibility if the Nobel committee had waited until next year, but perhaps they didn’t want to take the chance that current events would make that impossible by the end of 2010. The kind of “peacemaking” favored by the Nobel committee is the kind that usually gets innocent people killed, and frequently ends in the kind of war that comes as an even bigger surprise than Obama’s award.

Obama had been in office for less than two weeks before the Nobel nominations were finalized, so his nomination was not based on anything he had done as President. The Nobel Price long ago became a joke, and an insult to the people who suffer under terror and tyranny around the world, but I don’t think the committee just threw Obama the award because he’s so wonderfully special, and not even because he won the election to succeed the only man who has truly deserved the award since 2001. Maybe Obama won the Nobel because of his courageous youthful defiance of murderous evil, when he was brutally tortured for months but refused to submit to totalitarian brutes? Oh, no, wait, that was the guy he defeated in the election.

…

The cultural and political elite of Europe is delighted to give Obama an award for his bold work in turning America into the same kind of dilettante basket case they are. The people who sat helplessly and watched the slaughter in Bosnia may come to regret sacrificing their last shred of credibility to shore up a weak President, so he can finish the task of hobbling the only nation on Earth that can do a damned thing to prevent a slaughter. Europe thinks it can do business with the Islamic fascism creeping through its streets, but it will find any deals it makes with them have expiration dates, as surely as all of Barack Obama’s promises do. When they once again turn to America to save them, they had better hope we’ve had the wisdom to replace the confused and helpless man clutching his shiny Nobel Peace Prize with someone who can saddle up and ride to the rescue. Negotiation without principle is submission, and the only peace brought by submission is the peace of the grave

And the graves brought by such peace — full of tortured souls — are not peaceful.

In a past national election, a uniformed hate group stood outside a polling place with a two-foot-long police nightstick in hand, screaming racial epithets and threats in a successful effort to prevent citizens from voting and poll watchers from doing their jobs. The Department of Justice investigated, the career counsel approved the institution of a civil complaint, and one was brought.

The defendants offered up no defense. They failed even to appear in court. The federal district court judge entered default judgments against the defendants. Later he ordered the Justice Department to file motions for the entry of default judgments, formally acknowledging they had won.

At this time, over the objections of career counsel, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli ordered the case dropped.

Is this an historic case illustrating life under the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow?

No, it occurred in the 2008 election and the group involved was the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBPP).

Was there some dispute about the facts? No. Here’s a YouTube of the incident so you can see some of what occurred yourself.

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission, charged with overseeing such matters, examined the evidence. In a letter to the Justice Department, they said that this act caused “great confusion, since the NBPP members were caught on video blocking access to the polls, and physically threatening and verbally harassing voters during the Nov. 4, 2008, general election. ”

The attorney general who engaged in this inexplicable act was appointed by President Barack Obama, who was sold to the voters as a post-racial figure and a constitutional law scholar.

OBAMA: — continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well.

Obama’s conciliatory moves marked an abrupt shift from Friday morning, when White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed a suggestion that the backlash from police groups could be distressing to the White House, given that Obama has enjoyed a positive relationship with the law enforcement community.

“I think the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed McCain,” Gibbs fired back at reporters, referring to Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 election. “If I’m not mistaken.”

Hmmm… one can also said that Obama attacked the police because the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed McCain. Which one is the cause and which one is the effect?

Andrew C. McCarthy: Sotomayor Shows the Way
“Democratic senators, however, do not have that problem — they see Judge Sotomayor’s chameleon routine for what it is: doing what she must do to get confirmed, even by a filibuster-proof chamber. Once she’s on the high court, it’ll be business as usual, and the disavowals will be the stuff of dim memory — grist for conservative legal beagles, nothing more.”

Jim Geraghty: Sonia the Judge Beats Sonia the Speech-GiverThe hearings showed that even with 60 Democrats, the Senate couldn’t approve an open radical.

Minorities Can’t Be Racists

No. As a wise Latina, I can tell you, no, she’s not backing down. And she probably would want to say, “Not only do I mean a wise Latina, I meant any Latina could make a better decision than a white man could.”